Amid an emerging trend of multinational companies hiving off their India offshore units, US-based PC giant Hewlett Packard has asserted it remains committed to its BPO unit in the country and plans to increase its headcount by 20 per cent over the next one year.

The company said it remains committed to its business process outsourcing business whose global capabilities provide an extensive range of services to its customers and plans to ramp up its BPO headcount in India to 7,800 over the next year.

"HP has no plans to sell or divest its business process outsourcing business," the company's business development and communications head in India Arundhati Chakraborty told PTI.

At present, we have approximately 6,500 employees in our India centres and we expect to expand our headcount by 20 per cent over the next year, she added.

Reacting to recent reports suggesting that HP might join the emerging trend of MNCs selling off their India offshore units, the company said it had no such plans and instead it was ramping up its operations with headcount and infrastructure additions as well as new contract wins.

Over two dozen multinational firms are said to be mulling over plans to sell off their India offshore units, following the precedent set by firms like General Electric (GE) and British Airways in the past.

Chakraborty asserted, however, that its India BPO unit is a profitable business for HP and it has expanded the scope, scale and complexity of its offerings and increased customer base over the years.

HP's BPO unit in India, known as Global E-Business Operations Pvt Ltd, is growing its captive and commercial business and its impact is evident from growth in areas like customer additions, headcount expansion, infrastructure development and new product offerings, Chakraborty said.

"We have won large multiple commercial accounts in the last three months and we have opened a new centre in Chennai to accommodate the growth we have achieved recently. This brings the total number to four centers in the country with two each in Bangalore and Chennai," she added.